


Home is where you lay your heart

by WinterLioness



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M, Matt/Julie mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:29:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterLioness/pseuds/WinterLioness
Summary: Set during the finale - what if Matt and Tyra left the bar while Tim and Julie talked?





	Home is where you lay your heart

It’s closing time at Buddy’s and Tim Riggins is cleaning the bar, a half smile on his face as he watches the coach’s daughter dancing to some old country song playing on the jukebox. He had watched as Matt got up to leave and Julie Taylor kissed him goodbye, like it was normal for her to hang out at the bar while Matt went home to his grandmother. Like maybe Tim Riggins, resident parolee, and Julie Taylor, coach’s daughter were friends. But then again maybe they were, because in a box between letters from Tara, Becky, and his brother were two letters from her. Perfect handwriting and gentle words. 

Julie looked over her shoulder at him as she flipped thru the options of songs. She glanced back to pick a song then made her way to the bar stool directly across from him. He bent his head a little more as he wiped at a spot on the almost shining bartop.

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Her voice trembled in the way he was so familiar with and it made him wince, how innocent she still sounded. He glanced to where her hands were fidling with the ring that had sat on her finger all night. 

“I don’t know Jules.” He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice, and the soft sigh she let out before her chin hit her arms. 

“I don’t either. It’s like when I’m with him and telling everyone I am so sure. But then I stop for a second and it doesn’t make sense. I love him though, ya know?” 

“I know.” He stopped wiping the bar and leaned back against the wall of alcohol.

“I can’t tell if I’m running away anymore.” Her throat was getting sticky and she ran her finger against the shot glass for a few moments before she slid it back to him. He poured her another shot before nudging the glass back to her. “I slept with a married man.” She looks up at him after she says it, smiling at the way he tilts his head in surprise. “He was my TA and it didn’t work out the way I thought it was going too.”

“Those things never do.” 

“I don’t think I handle other people judging me very well, I wish I could be a little more like you.” That gets a laugh out of him, and she smiles, every true laugh from Tim Riggins feels a little too much like a victory. 

“Now I know you are drunk.” 

“I’m not, haven’t been since that night. I barely trust myself when I’m sober.”

“You are a good girl, Julie Taylor.”

“Maybe I’m not.” She tilted her head at him, tears in her eyes but a half smile on her face. “I crashed my car into a neighbor's mailbox because I was too afraid to face consequences of sleeping with the wrong man. Then when my parents forced me to go back to school I drove to Chicago.”

“Mistakes make you human.”

“You’ve gotten pretty good at this bartender therapy thing.” That got her a snort, which made her stomach clench in a way she hadn’t felt since he was living on her couch and she got to see him grumpy and disheveled in the morning.

“I love Matt, I really do, and I love Chicago. I think I could be happy with that life, and it makes sense, but I just don’t know if there is more? Like I feel like I’m just playing the part that’s been written for me. I get straight A’s, go to a perfect college, marry a guy who is always going to love me, follow him in his dreams. Maybe I’m afraid of becoming my mom, and doesn’t that make me just horrible?” Tim grabs a bottle of water on his way around the bar, pulling her into a hug when he gets to her. 

“There isn’t anything wrong with not wanting what everyone else wants for you.” She tilts her head up so her nose is pressing against chin.

“I’m supposed to want more then Dillon.” She whispers it against his throat, like someone else may hear in the empty bar. 

“Do you?” His voice is soft, his jaw barely moving as he whispers it. She almost laughs at the irony that the person she has the most in common with in this small town is her complete opposite. The girl destined for greatness and the boy everyone said wouldn’t make it very far. She pulls herself slightly out of his arms and he releases her, leaning back against a bar stool.

“I want to see so many things, but I’m not sure if its fear or if it just feels wrong to say goodbye. But when I think about where I see myself in the future I can’t figure out where I am or what I am doing. I want somewhere to call my own, a dog and land for it to run and play, kids and dance recitals and football practices, a job that I love like my parents love theirs.” She stops, watching her own hands where she has pulled her ring off and set it on the bar. “I think what scares me most of all is when I think of who is standing there beside me while I watch my future kids play in the yard with my future dog is I don’t see Matt.” Her voice breaks and she quickly pulls her hands away from the ring like it has burned her. He grabs the hand that the ring was on before and smiles down at it, lifting the corners of his lips in a smile at her.

“Jules, whatever you decide you know you have people in your corner.” She looks at their hands, and how tiny hers is compared to his. Then she brings her eyes up to his and brings a hand up to brush his hair from his face.

“The same goes for you Riggins, and for what it’s worth Dillon feels less like home without you.” He gives his surprised smile, the one he had on her face the first time her father had told him he was proud, the same one he wore whenever someone said they believed in him. He wraps one of his hands around her shoulders in a half hug, picking up the ring and tucking it into her pocket as he guides her to the door. 

 

And right before he turns off the lights and pulls her out the door and into the warm Texas night, she catches a glimpse of his relieved smile. Her heart aches for this boy, not for the first time. A boy who learned family left and bruised much too young, who turned cold against the judgemental stares, but that still took in people and loved them in a way that no one had ever done for him. And maybe she saw for the first time who could be standing beside her as she did the dishes, getting into a bubble fight as the kids and the dog played in the back yard. Tim Riggins wasn’t perfect in the way Matt was, he was all sharp edges and flaws, but he tucked her under her arm and made her laugh and made her feel steady in a way no one else ever had. 

“So Tim Riggins, where do you see yourself in five years?”

Maybe moving to Dillon wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if anyone actually reads this I hope you liked it. ;)   
> Hoping to get back into writing and I just binged Friday Night Lights so here we are.


End file.
